The reason for this is that ONE ip address, hosting a server, mis behaved and spammed them. In reurn they bonced / rejected email from 100's / 1000's of ip addresses in NZ - most of them VDS / VPS being used as mail servers, website hosts etc. The impact of this affected hundreds of companies.

Below is my response to Microsofts arrogant fix of this issue. By fix I mean a half baked, semi lifting of the ban. I also include Microsofts official response for your edification - please note there was only 1 IP address totally banned. Talk about swatting a fly with a mack truck.

After 3.5 hours plus on the phone to cretinous overseas help(sic) desk I got through to an NZ lass who got me what I wanted in under 15 mintes - and she wasn't even IT support. Thus my testy tone.

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Let me be blunt:

We run a mail server at 120.138.28.18 and work bloody hard to ensure we have a good reputation so that all the clients we host can enjoy consistent and smooth mail services. We have run this mail server for at least 3-4 years, have a clean reputation with the top 104 black lists we monitor every 5 minutes and have done so for years.

To be blanket banned because someone else, on a different IP address, but in a similar range, has mis behaved is unacceptable. You have cost me time and money re-mediating this, damaged my and my companies reputation with clients and cost my clients hundreds of dollars, as well as potentially jobs because you decided to act like god and kill our ability to send mail to your clients.

Well your clients pay you for the privilege of hosting their mail and you have hurt them too. They too have failed to receive emails that give them contracts and work, and by not getting said emails will miss out on work.

These actions by Microsoft are a shoddy, bad mannered, ill conceived, half baked example of crap IT in action. It was not good practice, it wasn't even half arsed practice - it was totally shoddy, cretinous , stupidity in action.

Treating my mail servers as if they are new, and forcing them to re-prove themselves to you is an arrogance seen only practised by companies who think they can do what they like because they are so big. Considering the amount of spam and crap we receive from Microsoft customers - you should be crawling on your knees begging me to allow your clients to send mail to me.

To have Deliverability Support investigate further, please reply to this email with a detailed description of the problem you are having, including specific error messages, and an agent will contact you.

Not qualified for mitigation120.138.28.89;Our investigation has determined that the above IP(s) do not qualify for mitigation.

Outlook.com limits the number of email messages a particular IP can send within a time period based on the IP's reputation. When an IP exceeds its sending limit, any further SMTP commands from the IP will receive error code 421 from Outlook.com and the connection will be terminated.

To have Deliverability Support investigate further, please reply to this email with a detailed description of the problem you are having, including specific error messages, and an agent will contact you.

More information needed120.138.28.143;We were unable to identify anything on our side that would prevent your mail from reaching Outlook.com customers.

If you are still experiencing deliverability issues, please reply to this email with a detailed description of the problem you are having, including specific error messages, and an agent will contact you.

If this is a new IP space, and you have not yet begun to send mail to Outlook.com users, please reply to this email and one of our support team members will contact you to collect more information.

Regardless of the deliverability status, Outlook.com recommends that all senders join two free programs that provide visibility into the Outlook.com traffic on your sending IP(s), the sending IP reputation with Outlook.com and the Outlook.com user complaint rates.

Smart Network Data Services program (SNDS). This program allows you to monitor the ‘health’ and reputation of your registered IPs by providing data about traffic such as mail volume and complaint rates seen originating from your IPs. To register, please visit http://postmaster.live.com/snds/.

There is no silver bullet to maintaining or improving good IP reputation, but these programs help you proactively manage your email eco-system to help better ensure deliverability to Outlook.com users.

OP, if you want a positive outcome, I can guarantee you that the tone of your email is hurting your chances of achieving that. You're being basically incredibly insulting to the people you want help from. Regardless of the reasons for it, you're hurting your outcomes just to make yourself feel better by yelling at someone. That's not a quality I would want in any employee, supplier or IT consultant.

Cheers - N

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Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

I agree with @talkiet that the way you communicate with people is poor. You've had that feedback a considerable number of times in your posts here, it's something I think, for your sake, and the sake of your customers, you should review. That isn't a personal attack on you, for the record. I often understand your frustrations, but consider sitting on your communications for an hour and reviewing them, and take into consideration how it will be perceived by your recipient and whether it's likely you will get a better outcome as a result.

Agree with the above, your email will get annoy people and will make them not want to help you.

You should never suck up when trying to get a resolution to a problem created by another person. It sets a bad precedent that reinforces the beliefs of egomaniacs and narcissists which are now commonplace. They should want to do their job to the best of their ability regardless.

yitz: You could always buy an entire /24 :D Easier and possibly cheaper option would be just to use SMTP2GO tbh.

Until they ban that without cause.

MS's actions are unjustifyable at either a technical or legal or moral or ethical level. its discrimination against people who have done no wrong. Their further replies say to sign up with their processes ( did) and thne to guarentee you wont have this happen again sign up with a third party system that will only cost you $1200 minimum per year so you can guarentee MS will let you mail through.

Wow - that's cronyism / nepotism and just one more example of how the internet is gradually falling apart as it is monopolised by ever bigger players who can cause carnage at their pleasure.

I agree with @talkiet that the way you communicate with people is poor. You've had that feedback a considerable number of times in your posts here, it's something I think, for your sake, and the sake of your customers, you should review. That isn't a personal attack on you, for the record. I often understand your frustrations, but consider sitting on your communications for an hour and reviewing them, and take into consideration how it will be perceived by your recipient and whether it's likely you will get a better outcome as a result.

Good point - and I totally agree - except it doesnt work. The number of times i have been on calls and processes that have taken hours / weeks and finally it is when I pull out the agro that things get done.

Just look at how the average hep desk call works - they dont listen, they dont do as you ask, they talk over the top of you and put you through processes that do not end up where you need to be. 3 hours with MS yesterday, being polite got me no where. however, a few hard and choice phrases, with no swear words attached, bullied me through the crap to a person who got the process finished. My clients could send emails again - rather than staying in the crap for days /weeks / hours.

Again, I've tried working the systems using politically correct emails with the right phrases, being politely critical / requesting / concerned and got no where. However when the gloves come off and a the boots go on - we get places.

A child was expelled from school ( he is autisitc) and 25 weeks later the Govt / MOE / Health systems still hadn't done 1 thing - despite letters, email, phone calls, calls from schools etc. So I took off my polite hat and went to town. 1 week later he had a school arranged. two weeks later he was back in school. Why? Because I acted like a complete bastard which was what was required to get things done.

Again, ACC - 13 missed payments in the firsst 52 weeks, 6 weeks no income while was in hopsital, lost paper work, complete denial of provision of the most basic requirments for someone who was completley crippled. Polite letters, positive letters, encouraging letters - all failed. Complete bastard behaviour with threats (non-violent but of a political / get you fired nature) and things happened. I now have a responsive manager who works with me - but to get there took a lot of bad attitude and bad behaviour - and this process is unfortunately the normal process required to get ACC working correctly.

The language in the above correspondence isn't polite, but it isn't bad language either. it is a terse, communication, communicating a disdain and anger felt for the most stupid of actions and inviting them to take action. It is hard to ignore and it gives every indication that if they do the consequences wont be politically correct so please pay attention.

Modern society is way too polite. There is a lot of studys showing blunt honesty is far more healthy than the velvet glove , double speak we use now days.

communication is or should be as much about fellings / we are human not vulcan after all. Unfortunately the beurecratic helpdesk processes have a lot of underpaid monkeys in them who wont hepl you and dont care. They say things like it's nothing personal. It is bloody personal when my clients are losing money and I am losing reputation and the dipsticks who caused the issue wont engage. I feel me letter above communicates that as both a person and worker. PC stuff doesn't.

OP, if you want a positive outcome, I can guarantee you that the tone of your email is hurting your chances of achieving that. You're being basically incredibly insulting to the people you want help from. Regardless of the reasons for it, you're hurting your outcomes just to make yourself feel better by yelling at someone. That's not a quality I would want in any employee, supplier or IT consultant.

Cheers - N

looking at what i sent - which part was offensive?

This line? These actions by Microsoft are a shoddy, bad mannered, ill conceived, half baked example of crap IT in action. It was not good practice, it wasn't even half arsed practice - it was totally shoddy, cretinous , stupidity in action.

It's blunt - but truthful. If I had an employee who banned 1000s of ip addresses as one offended I would be furious - and rightly so. I would ask them why, I would look at retraining them but would leave them in no doubt that is a ludicrous response. To do otherwise is to do them a dis-service - how else can they learn.

Please note - the line is not personally attcking anyone -it is attacking an action taken. It also communicates how I feel about the outcome, not just the action.

Or was it another line that you think is bad communication?

If it is the titchy tone - why is that wrong? Since when is it not right to communicate how you feel aobut something? Are we vulcans? No. to communicate in thoughts only is bad communication - politically correct - but wrong.

Agree with the above, your email will get annoy people and will make them not want to help you.

You should never suck up when trying to get a resolution to a problem created by another person. It sets a bad precedent that reinforces the beliefs of egomaniacs and narcissists which are now commonplace. They should want to do their job to the best of their ability regardless.

Can I quote you? That is a beautiful example of brevity and concise thinking. Thank you.

OP, if you want a positive outcome, I can guarantee you that the tone of your email is hurting your chances of achieving that. You're being basically incredibly insulting to the people you want help from. Regardless of the reasons for it, you're hurting your outcomes just to make yourself feel better by yelling at someone. That's not a quality I would want in any employee, supplier or IT consultant.

Cheers - N

looking at what i sent - which part was offensive?

This line? These actions by Microsoft are a shoddy, bad mannered, ill conceived, half baked example of crap IT in action. It was not good practice, it wasn't even half arsed practice - it was totally shoddy, cretinous , stupidity in action.

It's blunt - but truthful. If I had an employee who banned 1000s of ip addresses as one offended I would be furious - and rightly so. I would ask them why, I would look at retraining them but would leave them in no doubt that is a ludicrous response. To do otherwise is to do them a dis-service - how else can they learn.

Please note - the line is not personally attcking anyone -it is attacking an action taken. It also communicates how I feel about the outcome, not just the action.

Or was it another line that you think is bad communication?

If it is the titchy tone - why is that wrong? Since when is it not right to communicate how you feel aobut something? Are we vulcans? No. to communicate in thoughts only is bad communication - politically correct - but wrong.

Sigh. Congrats. You're now only the second GZ member I've added to a personal "do not engage with" list. Following from your clear ethos to be blunt when needed, this is personal - I don't feel that you and I are ever going to be able to engage in productive discourse and I'd rather spend my time helping people that are polite.

Cheers - N

--

Please note all comments are the product of my own brain and don't necessarily represent the position or opinions of my employer, previous employers, colleagues, friends or pets.

OP, if you want a positive outcome, I can guarantee you that the tone of your email is hurting your chances of achieving that. You're being basically incredibly insulting to the people you want help from. Regardless of the reasons for it, you're hurting your outcomes just to make yourself feel better by yelling at someone. That's not a quality I would want in any employee, supplier or IT consultant.

Cheers - N

looking at what i sent - which part was offensive?

This line? These actions by Microsoft are a shoddy, bad mannered, ill conceived, half baked example of crap IT in action. It was not good practice, it wasn't even half arsed practice - it was totally shoddy, cretinous , stupidity in action.

It's blunt - but truthful. If I had an employee who banned 1000s of ip addresses as one offended I would be furious - and rightly so. I would ask them why, I would look at retraining them but would leave them in no doubt that is a ludicrous response. To do otherwise is to do them a dis-service - how else can they learn.

Please note - the line is not personally attcking anyone -it is attacking an action taken. It also communicates how I feel about the outcome, not just the action.

Or was it another line that you think is bad communication?

If it is the titchy tone - why is that wrong? Since when is it not right to communicate how you feel aobut something? Are we vulcans? No. to communicate in thoughts only is bad communication - politically correct - but wrong.

Sigh. Congrats. You're now only the second GZ member I've added to a personal "do not engage with" list. Following from your clear ethos to be blunt when needed, this is personal - I don't feel that you and I are ever going to be able to engage in productive discourse and I'd rather spend my time helping people that are polite.

Cheers - N

Honestly I'm confused. You seem to indicate bluntness is offensive or somehow wrong.? I personally find obsessive politeness offensive as it is a form of lying. At the least its an obfuscation of the truth of how people are thinking for feeling.

I would agree there is one line with emotional invective in what I wrote - but after 3.5 hours of being ignored, talked over and treated to complete indifference, a certain amount of invective is appropriate. Better the blows of a friend than the kisses of an enemy.

OP, if you want a positive outcome, I can guarantee you that the tone of your email is hurting your chances of achieving that. You're being basically incredibly insulting to the people you want help from. Regardless of the reasons for it, you're hurting your outcomes just to make yourself feel better by yelling at someone. That's not a quality I would want in any employee, supplier or IT consultant.

Cheers - N

looking at what i sent - which part was offensive?

This line? These actions by Microsoft are a shoddy, bad mannered, ill conceived, half baked example of crap IT in action. It was not good practice, it wasn't even half arsed practice - it was totally shoddy, cretinous , stupidity in action.

It's blunt - but truthful. If I had an employee who banned 1000s of ip addresses as one offended I would be furious - and rightly so. I would ask them why, I would look at retraining them but would leave them in no doubt that is a ludicrous response. To do otherwise is to do them a dis-service - how else can they learn.

Please note - the line is not personally attcking anyone -it is attacking an action taken. It also communicates how I feel about the outcome, not just the action.

Or was it another line that you think is bad communication?

If it is the titchy tone - why is that wrong? Since when is it not right to communicate how you feel aobut something? Are we vulcans? No. to communicate in thoughts only is bad communication - politically correct - but wrong.

Sigh. Congrats. You're now only the second GZ member I've added to a personal "do not engage with" list. Following from your clear ethos to be blunt when needed, this is personal - I don't feel that you and I are ever going to be able to engage in productive discourse and I'd rather spend my time helping people that are polite.

Cheers - N

Honestly I'm confused. You seem to indicate bluntness is offensive or somehow wrong.? I personally find obsessive politeness offensive as it is a form of lying. At the least its an obfuscation of the truth of how people are thinking for feeling.

I would agree there is one line with emotional invective in what I wrote - but after 3.5 hours of being ignored, talked over and treated to complete indifference, a certain amount of invective is appropriate. Better the blows of a friend than the kisses of an enemy.

Look, your posts are long and ranty and emotive. We can all get like that at times, but for you, IMHO, its ALL the time.

Calm down, take a deep breath, revistt this a bit later. Give the facts, give your disappointment, but keep it to the point. Your posts need to be a point of discussion, not a political speech